


The Empty Eyes of the Damned

by StarsInMyDamnEyes



Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: AHAAAA YES THERE’S A TAG, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, Alternate Universe - Post-Canon, Alternating POV bc like.... of COURSE it is I’m a slut for alternating POV, Aromantic Asexual Geralt, Gen, Geralt Typical Angst, Jhfdgkjdhfkg I’m just lowkey trying to make oldralt a thing, Modern Era, Mystery, Old Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, POV Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Plot, Plotty, Post-Canon, Very thinly veiled anticapitalism and hatred of bureaucracy, bear with me on that i swear it’s a mystery, gen fic because I’m cool, geralt is just Done With Life at this point, it’s not relevant yet but he IS, some murder, this fic has a P L O T, yes beta we rise like bread
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-29
Updated: 2020-11-12
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:14:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27270280
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StarsInMyDamnEyes/pseuds/StarsInMyDamnEyes
Summary: Hundreds of years had passed since Geralt really held any relevance - so to speak - within the public eye, or any kind of general influence in any sphere of the world at large. Nowadays, it was becoming something of a chore to prevent himself from stagnating in a world that had made it abundantly clear that there was no place for him within it.However, with the suspicious death of a Count and the subsequent reemergence of faces forgotten long ago, it began to seem perhaps there really was much more to the banalities of the situation than originally met the eye - and, as it turned out, there might just be a place in the world left for Geralt after all.
Comments: 34
Kudos: 32





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello!! I am trying my hand at writing a modern au - with short chapters so as to be easier to update consistently alongside schoolwork. I hope u enjoy!!! This is.... this is not my usual niche jfghkjdsfhgks

The bed creaked, the metal frame shifting as the old man kicked his duvet and swung his legs over the side. He blinked, pupils contracting into slits, against the morning light streaming through the blinds.

He got up slowly, groaning, and turned to face his alarm clock - the alarm clock that had evidently, at some point in the night, stopped working entirely - the hands had frozen at quarter to three.

"Shit," the old man hissed, glaring at the clock face. "Shit and piss. Damn you to hell, you useless instrument."

Then, he went, with footsteps light as a cat's, to have some breakfast.

Time had forgotten Geralt, the witcher formerly-of-Rivia.

He hadn't much been aware that he'd been taken notice of, in the first place, right up until he realised his name and profession had slipped out of public consciousness, and he was nothing and no-one again, just a strange old man who’d been arrested more times than he can count for doing something that had once been his livelihood, with even place he’d once claimed as his home now being only a district of the Democratic Republic of Lyria.

But he’d gotten the point.

After all, who needs a witcher when they have the military and their _literal_ instruments of chaos controlling monster populations with _taxpayer funding_... _Toss a Coin_ was sung only by the most high-brow of music students, despite its creator having written it - and this much, Geralt was certain of - in about ten minutes, and Kaer bloody Morhen was now a Historically Preserved Site of Old Stuff, and on those grounds, he, Eskel, Lambert, and Vesemir were no longer allowed to take up residence in their _own gods-damned residence_...

He really hadn’t expected a witcher’s retirement to involve so much bureaucracy.

To sum it up concisely, the world had gone to absolute shit, and now Geralt was eating cereal and drinking tea, watching the morning news. Getting offed as a newly-minted, first-year witcher on his way up the Killer to Kaer Morhen would have been a less embarrassing end to his career.

But, he’d managed to secure full ownership of his flat, much to the vexation of his former landlord, and the food was good, at least. Silver lining.

Geralt took a gulp of tea, and focused back on the TV - a shitty little thing, from back in the ‘80s, the 1980s, but at least he knew it wasn’t spying on him - the morning news was on. He liked to keep up with what was happening in the world, sue him. The world had proved, very effectively, that it wasn’t about to keep up with him.

“ _The fire at the Eternal Fire’s cathedral in Novigrad on Friday that killed seventeen people and left a further twenty-four injured was determined to have been caused by faulty wiring_ ,” the newscaster read out, and Geralt snorted into his tea. Poor form, he knew, but the irony was delicious. 

His phone buzzed in his pocket - an unknown number, calling from... Aedirn, if Geralt remembered correctly.

That was strange. He was sure that he could count on one hand the number of people who even knew he had a phone - Lambert, Eskel, Vesemir, Yennefer, and Triss Merigold, but that was it. It was a number that was scarcely ever called, save for the odd wrong number and invitation to catch up by one of his fellow relics of an older time - someone had probably mis-dialled.

He squinted at the screen, and pressed the little red button that would shut the machine up.

“ _Continuing on, we have news that the Count Richard Nathaniel de Stael, CEO of the Stael Corporation, was found dead in his home early this morning. The details of the case have not yet been released to the public, but this does suggest that the supply agreement between the corporation and the Kaedweni military that was due to be negotiated this week shall be pushed back-_ ”

Geralt breathed out a sigh into his tea. The de Staels were bureaucrats and capitalists, having made billions off of their technology, a pioneering thing that, instead of circumventing the need for chaos like was the standard approach to technology, actually worked to _harness_ it. It was how the military could actually go up against the various monsters that had previously been Geralt’s problems-to-be-dealt-with.

What he was getting at was, the Stael Corp had directly cost Geralt his job, and his sympathies for Richard de Stael were few and far between.

His phone started to ring again, then, the same Aedirnian number.

Geralt let the damn thing ring and simply took a nice, long sip of his tea, the familiar, not-quite-bitter taste soothing - ironically - as it scalded his tongue. It was, arguably, far too late for his morning walk now, what with the whole point of scheduling it at such an ungodly hour being that he might conveniently side-step any interaction with his various neighbours.

It was surely shaping up to be a day.

The world had grown and twisted and changed around him, in these past few hundreds of years, and Geralt had - well.

He was a witcher, his purpose was simply supposed to be a steady, constant life of killing monsters for coin and occasionally getting far more involved with politics than he had any right to, as much as Vesemir would like to claim otherwise. But this wasn’t the 1200s anymore. The wider set of society had suddenly up and decided to overhaul itself whilst he wasn’t looking, and Geralt had most certainly failed to adapt to it.

Frustratingly enough, this had snowballed with remarkable aptitude, and led to his current situation, mainly - or so he liked to think - through no fault of his own. Geralt- he’d turned around for _five seconds_ , for the love of Melitele, and suddenly it was a criminal offence to hunt a drowner without a goddamn government-issued license that they refused, point-blank, to give him.

But it was what it was, and Geralt was no stranger to disregarding the laws of the land when he felt that they suited him better. The government and their fancy chaos-guns took entire units to do what he and his brothers had done as individuals, and for a fraction of the price, too.

He’d seen the budget plans. They were, in a nutshell, hilarious.

Geralt’s phone began to buzz again, and he scowled at it. It was all very well and good that people wanted to get into contact with him, but given the unfamiliar number, it was all too likely that the conversation awaiting him wasn’t going to be one that he particularly wanted to have. Either it was a telemarketer, some government official that’d shat their pants at his vague flaunting of the law again, or someone wanting a favour, and favours were in short supply these days.

They simply didn’t get the bills paid, and of course, when you asked for payment, it stopped being a favour.

All in all, he simply didn’t want to answer the damn thing, for whatever reason, and he had half a mind to take it back upstairs and shove it under his pillow where even he would be hard-pressed to pick up on the incessant vibrating, but his day had already been thrown very thoroughly out of his usual routine, and so... he might as well.

It was a decision he would most likely come to regret, absolutely, but still, Geralt rolled his eyes and picked up the phone.

“Yes?”

“So polite,” came the answering voice, a prissy, central-continental drawl, the kind that various higher-class individuals used rather than succumb to the horrifying disease of sounding like one of the _common folk_ of whatever country they hailed from, and Geralt’s sluggish heart plummeted into his shoes.

“What do you want?”

“Really, Geralt, where are your manners? I simply require your services for a moment - undoubtedly you’ve seen the news.”

“I have,” he said, through gritted teeth. “It’s nothing to do with me.”

“It’ll become something to do with you, if the Kaedweni government hears of your little... shall we call them, night-time jaunts into protected areas?”

“They’re not protected areas if they can just barge in with their tanks, Stael.”

The newly-titled Countess de Stael tutted over the phone. “Geralt, would you like me to enroll you in a law course, in exchange for your services?”

“Fuck off.”

“I’ll expect you know where I want you.”

Geralt snarled. “I’m not a private investigator, Stael.”

“Be that as it may, I am in need of your skill set, and you are in need of my favour... unless, of course, you’d _like_ to get dragged up in front of judge and jury again, in which case, to each their own. I’ll understand.”

Geralt slammed his nigh-empty mug down on the counter, beside the sink, with enough force to crack the cheap ceramic handle right off as he glared daggers into the wall.

The _fucking_ countess. The last time he’d seen her, she’d been a smug, fresh-faced sixteen-year-old, sitting beside her parents at Geralt’s hearing, wherein some uppity prick in a wig had explained to him why his intervention into the local drowner population had been in horrendous defiance of the law and thus worthy of punishment, never mind that they’d been getting brave enough to start attacking the local populace on well-known forest trails.

Then again, he was no stranger to the gentry taking advantage of those they considered to be beneath them.

“You’re not in need of my fucking skill set, Stael, you’re _impatient_. Your precious police and CSI will be able to do more than me with a crime scene.”

“Cute,” she laughed. “But those are entirely different disciplines. A forensic analysis will be able to get fingerprints, but you’ll be able to pick up a scent, you’ll be able to see clues that the CSI department won’t even know to look for.”

“I am _not_ your private fucking analyst,” Geralt snarled. “You love the government so much, stick your trust in them.”

The Countess’ tone was stark and clipped as she replied next. “I’m not having this argument with you, Geralt, you’re wasting my time. I’ll send you the address I want you at, and I can either see you there or in court, and I’m sure your jury will be less sympathetic this time round.”

“Yeah, yeah, and I’ll see you in hell, Stael.”

The sharp inhalation of breath that echoed through the speaker - nigh inaudible to the normal ear, but clear as day to him - before he hung up let Geralt know that he’d succeeded in well and truly pissing the Countess de Stael off.

He’d take small victories where he could get them - he was, deep in his soul, a tad bit pettier than he cared to admit to himself, and if the Countess wanted his unwilling services, she was unfortunately also bound to have to put up with _him_.

Geralt was sure that blackmail was a criminal offence in Kaedwen too, although not one usually taken to court due to all the obvious implications that having to _prove_ said blackmailing carried with it, and the Countess de Stael could likely pay her way out of it, at any rate - still, there was something vindicating about the whole situation. Pot, meet kettle.

Sure, he may have been _illegally doing his job_ , yeah, but he was still confident in the fact that he could take the moral high ground in this situation.

Shoving his phone into his pocket, and mentally making a reminder to superglue the handle back to his mug, Geralt made his way back up to his room, to get prepared for what was undoubtedly going to end up being a whole messy ordeal - one of the old-fashioned ones, that he was going to either have to limit his involvement in or get incredibly, deeply invested in.

Vesemir would probably have told him he was getting far too old for this, but Vesemir was also liable to get _extremely involved_ when the situation presented itself, himself, and besides, Geralt was notoriously bad - he’d been told - at taking advice.

His phone buzzed - undoubtedly, the address that he didn’t want to show up at had been sent.

All things considered - the impending threat of the nurturing of his criminal record included - Geralt was sure that the whole mess of a situation that everything would undoubtedly devolve into would, at least, be interesting.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There is a girl, running through the twilight streets

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HI!!! AM NOT DED (shockingly)

The damp trainers, at least a full three finger-widths too wide around her feet, were tied with frayed, muddy laces around the middle in a haphazard attempt to keep them on her feet, as she shivered in the oversized, ratty jacket that was far, far too large for her frame.

All in all, she looked as if she’d pulled her entire outfit out of the depths of various dumpsters - mainly due to the fact that she _had_. It was shit and damp and miserable, but better than what she’d had before, and so it would do.

It was only on the interim, anyways, she told herself. Just until she found him.

She ducked and weaved through the crowds with remarkable ease - she’d gotten practiced in such an art, back at home, back when her motivations were far more childish and simple, evading lessons and the like, back when she had people who cared enough about her to educate her.

Logically, she knew that hadn’t been so long ago, but it felt like an age. Already, the life she’d left was beginning to feel like a fever dream.

The high-pitched splatter of water thrown up as her foot landed in a puddle didn’t faze her in the slightest.

She was small, despite her bulky clothing, and could duck between the few passers-by easily enough - scanning faces, casting her gaze around, hoping, so desperately, to catch the eye of _anyone_ who looked familiar.

Heaving, out of breath, she didn’t stop, just kept pushing forwards, running through the streets.

There was no need for her to run, no need for urgency, but idleness made her itchy, antsy, as if she wasn’t doing _quite enough_ \- she needed to find...

Staggering to a halt against the doorway of an illuminated shop, overshadowed by the massive spire of the cathedral whose back it was built against, she gasped for breath, the faint, white light of the sign framing her against the twilight cityscape. She’d been running for such a long time - she needed to find someone, _anyone_ she could trust, and yet here she was, betrayed by her own limits.

“Shit,” the girl hissed under her breath, choking a little on the word.

Her face was hot, forehead sticky, and as she stood to push her hair out of her eyes, she made eye contact with someone - a stranger - standing before her.

Not what she’d been hoping for at _all_

The stranger had short, brown hair, shot through with grey and cut in a bob, framing her face. Her eyes, too were a warm brown that seemed to almost emanate concern towards Ciri - lips curled into a frown that seemed more worried than disapproving.

“Are you alright, dearie?”

“Fine,” the girl bit out. “I’m fine.”

“Do you need me to call someone? Social services? The authorities?”

Holding in a flinch, the girl steadied herself, and tried to smile. “I’m- I’m fine, thank you. I appreciate the thought, though.”

“I doubt that,” the stranger said, her wrinkled face the picture of worry, or a very good imitation on it. “Do you want me to buy you a sandwich, or something, at least? You look starved.”

“I don’t know you.”

“I don’t mean to keep you- I’ll keep my distance, you just... You look hungry, and I work with underprivileged children, so I can’t in good conscience-”

“You want to buy me food?”

The stranger raised a greying eyebrow. “I can afford it, dearie, and you look positively famished.”

“You’re strange.”

“A sad thing, that is- are you _sure_ you don’t want me to call the authorities?”

“No,” the girl said, jutting out her chin. “I’m fine, and it’s none of your business anyways.”

The stranger didn’t seem to react to that. “That’s alright, dearie, whatever you’re comfortable with.”

She made her way into the interior of the shop, and the girl followed, keeping her danger. You never knew where danger might strike - she wasn’t about to make the same mistake twice, not ever.

Her hand - her right hand - trembled at the memory.

She shoved it deep into her pocket.

“What would you like, dearie?”

The girl blinked, and focused on the array of foods before her, settled in neat packaging in a humming, metallic cabinet, eyes glazing over printed script she could only begin to guess at reading.

They all looked similar enough to her.

“That one,” she said, jabbing a finger at the nearest one - brown bread, with a filling of something that looked to be egg and perhaps cress.

“Right away, dearie- do you have any allergies?”

A slow shake of the head.

“Do you want anything to drink?”

“No- yes,” the girl said, hastily correcting her mistake as she realised just how parched her throat was, just how refreshing a drink would be after just how much she’d run. “Yes, please. Can I get- water, please?”

The stranger chuckled warmly, an endearing sound. “That’s quite alright, dearie, I’ll nab one for you.”

The girl licked her lips. “Thank you.”

“Not a problem, dearie, feel free to take a seat, I’ll just nip off and pay for these.”

A nod, and the girl found herself alone once more, casting an eye around the nigh-empty shop, before sliding into the seat nearest to the door.

It had been lucky, she supposed, that she’d run into a benevolent stranger - inexperienced as she was at fending for herself, she was sure that the gnawing pangs of hunger that she’d been fortunate to avoid thus far would have made an appearance sooner or later.

The room was so brightly lit, for the time of day, and it was a tad bit uncomfortable.

Unfamiliar.

Drumming her fingers on the table, she realised with a start that she’d have no place to sleep that night, either.

She just wanted to go _home_ , was that really so much to ask? To go back to her room, her family, her friends - to go back somewhere where everything was certain, where everything was familiar, where everything was _fine_.

But that would be too easy a solution. There was no _home_ , anymore.

She hadn’t realised that her tears had begun to fall until one hit the too-glossy table, beside her clenched fist, but once they’d started, she couldn’t _stop_ them, hot and wet and messy, choking down the hiccuping sobs as best she could, reluctantly indulging herself in her misery.

So preoccupied was she, that she didn’t notice the woman returning - the stranger - with her food, a sandwich and a can of something that wasn’t water, until she felt the thud of something being dropped on the table, as the woman hovered over her.

“Are you alright, dearie?”

The girl sniffed, wiping her nose on her already-filthy jacket. “Fine- I’m- I’m fine.”

It would probably have sounded a lot more convincing, if her weak, wobbly voice hadn’t betrayed her.

“Are you sure? I can always call-”

“I’m fine, just- I’m tired, and my- my legs ache.” She could practically taste the lie on the air, and, from the looks of it, so could the stranger.

“I won’t push you, dearie-”

“You _are_ pushing me,” the girl snapped, and then immediately regretted it. “Sorry. Sorry, I’m just...”

“It’s alright, I’ll only do what you’re comfortable with. Here, your sandwich and drink... and I got you a little muffin too, do you like chocolate?”

“I- Yeah.” 

Unwrapping her sandwich, the girl began to eat, and - as was definitely improper as far as manners were concerned - speak with her mouth full.

“Why’re you bein’ s’ nice t’me?”

“I suppose...” the stranger mulled her words over a little. “I suppose it was just the right thing to do, dearie.”

The girl blinked.

_“There’s that- and it’s just the right thing to do, I suppose, all things considered.”_

The memory came to her, unbidden, of warmth and past kindness, and she flinched a little, remembering the man who’d grinned so easily at her as he said that.

It seemed like so long ago, now-

She remembered the feeling of his hand being wrenched from hers as he screamed her name.

The stranger’s eyes bore into her, brow creased and furrowed. Worry. “Are you alright, dearie?”

She kept _saying_ that, kept repeating herself like clockwork, and the girl shifted in her seat, busying herself with shoving the rest of her sandwich into her mouth.

“I tol’ you, ‘mfine,” she said, doing her best to chew and swallow at the same time.

“If you’re sure, dearie- are you _sure_ you don’t want me to call the authorities?”

The girl nodded vehemently, 

“That’s alright, dearie, whatever you’re comfortable with.”

She stopped, mid-chew. “You’ve said that before.”

“What would you like, dearie?”

“What?”

“Right away, dearie- do you have any allergies?”

The girl swallowed, and stood. “I have to go.”

Mirroring her, the woman - the strangely warm, strangely kind, strangely clockwork woman - did the same.

“Don’t- don’t do that,” the girl breathed. “Please. Leave me alone.”

The stranger looked down at her with eyes so impossibly warm and kind, eyes that the girl had _trusted_ , and schooled her face into the perfect picture of concern. “Do you want anything to drink?”

“You’ve had this conversation before,” she said, trembling, taking a step back. “How many times have you had this conversation before?”

“Are you alright dearie?”

“ _Answer me!_ ”

The yell caught the attention of the lanky youth behind the counter.

“Oi, there! Don’t you yell at Martha, she’s doin you a kindness!”

The girl took another trembling step back, and Martha - no, not Martha, it couldn’t be, this was _definitely not a person_ \- the thing that was not Martha did the same, waist pushing against the table.

Something shifted in the air, became colder, and the girl flinched, tears welling up in her eyes.

No.

_No._

Her hands were shaking, and pressure was building, pressing against her skull, her throat, and all she could think of was-

This was it.

It had felt so _natural_ , the way this thing talked, and it scared her - was she going to die here? Over a free sandwich?

The stranger’s smile twisted, from kind to eerie to _inhuman_ , her entire body shifting and becoming something monstrous, something grey and slimy and predatory, that gazed down upon her like it was drinking her in, tasting her for whatever it was that it was looking for, with a sort of gruesome, ravenous _hunger_ in its glittering, black eyes.

It was no longer a kindly stranger that stood before her, and she was beginning to realise that it never had been.

Had this thing lured Martha in, too, before it killed her? Were these her last moments, playing on repeat?

They fit with the girl’s predicament so eerily well it terrified her.

Had the stranger been tricked by this creature, too? Had - had _whatever this was_ lured her in, pretending that it was a starving child, only to assume her identity, too?

An image flashed in her mind, unbidden, of a kindly stranger chattering away to a child she thought to be behind her, as a monster loomed in the shadows.

The girl stood, her entire body telling her to run.

And so she did.

As soon as she moved, the creature leapt at her, stretching out its horrific claws, and the girl let out a choked cry as she threw her arms up to protect her head, feeling a sharp stab of pain as something sank into her side.

A mirage flickered over the monster’s face

“Are you- alright, dearie?”

The question trailed off into an inhuman screech.

“ _Let me go!_ ”

The girl kicked and thrashed, pain shooting up her side and down her leg, it was _agony_ , and yet it was entirely ineffectual, the monster was unfazed.

“Hang on, kid, I’m calling the authorities!”

The voice of the lanky man behind the counter was too little, too late, as the monster raised her up to its gaping maw, and the pressure building under the girl’s skin seemed to reach some kind of threshold, as desperate sobs rent themselves from her throat.

All she could see were teeth like thousands of needles, looming ever closer, and the world seemed to slow down as she approached what would surely be her end.

Not like this.

She remembered warmth, she remembered kindness, she remembered _safety_ , she remembered every single moment that had led her here in painful clarity.

And yet, her end only seemed to continue on with its steadfast and sure approach.

Pain wracked her side, where the monster had still not withdrawn its claw, and the pressure tearing at her skin seemed only to intensify, and a tingling numbness started to spread from her fingers and toes throughout her body, and she stared through the sheen of her tears, pushing her awareness through her sobbing, through the futile scraping at the claws wrapped around her.

The girl stared into the monster’s maw, trembling, wracked with pain and agony-

And she screamed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “I shall make the chapters shorter so it will be easier to update”, i said (you know, like a liar)
> 
> Comments are my lifeblood, please sustain me

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on tumblr @stars-in-my-damn-eyes!!!!


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